I am making really good progress on the desk. I am currently putting the finish on the top. I got the two coats of shellac on it late last week, and today I got the first coat of water based polyurethane on. It is looking really good.

Now, for the quick question. The polyurethane is water based satin polyurethane. The question: Is it really necessary to sand between coats. I always have because I have always heard you needed to, but this finish is looking so good that I really do not want to sand between the first and second coat. So, give me your opinion on the sanding.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend,

First, an overall shot of the base:

Now, a close-up of the end support:

Another close-up. This time it is the stretcher detail:

The center support:

Finally, the foot detail shot:

Good progress for the weekend so far. Especially considering I changed out the brake pads on the front of the truck Saturday morning before I ever really got started on this.

Just as a reminder, the wood is southern yellow pine from Home Depot. The finishing started with sanding the wood to 220 grit paper. Then I applied two coats of Zinsser SealCoat, sanding between coats and after the final coat with 220 grit paper. Then I applied two coats of Minwax Polycrylic sanding between the two coats with 220 grit paper. The finish was rubbed out with Johnson’s Paste Wax and 0000 steel wool, buffing it off with a cotton rag.

Tomorrow will be a concentrated effort on the top. I am hoping to get the top built and sanded, but I am not really expecting that to happen. That just might be too much work for one day. We will see.

Once again, no pictures but a lot of progress. This was a long weekend for me since my parents have been visiting. I made the best of it in the shop too. From Friday until today, I finished up building the base pieces and sanding them. I applied two coats of shellac yesterday to seal up the pine, and today I got the first coat of polyurethane on the base pieces.

With another long weekend coming up, I hope to get a lot more done. I am hoping to get the second and final coat of polyurethane on the base pieces before the end of the week. Then this weekend I hope to get the base glued/put together, and the top put together and at least sanded.

I hope this project does not go longer than three complete weekends. I really need to get the office set up so I can start doing a little work at home when I need to.

Once again, sorry there are no pictures, but they are on the way.

I was hoping to have pictures to post, but I was simply wiped out afer working in the heat and humidity all weekend. I am worn out, but I made a lot of progress on the desk. The feet are done and look awesome. The posts are done, and the top supports are done, for the most part. The only thing I have left to do is notch the center support to fit into the stretcher. The top panel is glued up and the breadboard ends are made and ready to apply to the top.

This week looks too busy to get anything done in the shop, but I will be taking Friday off. I will at least get a lot done in the morning. Friday I am hoping to finish up the stretcher and wrap thing up on the base of the table. Then next Sunday I am hoping to get the breadboard ends put on the top. Then, hopefully the rest of my mini-vacation from work a week from tomorrow and Tuesday I can get things ready to finish.

Overall I am day or two behind because I did not get to work much on anything this past week because of the day job and family obligations. As I said earlier, this week is not looking great for evening work on the desk.

Oh well, here’s to a very productive weekend this week, and hopefully a productive enough weekend and mini-vacation next week.

As always, thanks for reading,

Well, the shop got cleaned up today and I can now work out there. I will be starting tomorrow working on the feet of the table. I will keep posting on table progress as significant progress happens.

I have completed the drawings for another piece of furniture that is going in the room. This time, it is a storage unit for some of the kids’ toys. Since the toys are overtaking our small house, my wife wanted this to help out. We bought some plastic bins, and this is what I came up with. Well, here is what the unit looks like both with and without the bins in it:

The units are around 53” tall, 37” wide and 17” deep. I will be making them out of pine and finishing with water-based polyurethane. Hopefully this will be a fairly quick build.

Now, the only design I have left to do is a shaker-style cabinet (something like a jelly cupboard) to store my CDs, DVDs, backup drives, paper, and all of that messy looking stuff in.

Thanks for looking. I welcome any questions.

The overall size is 66” long, 30” deep, and 30” tall. The top will be made out of southern yellow pine from the home store. The feet and the posts are going to be made from fir 4×4s that I got from the home store. The stretcher will be made from southern yellow pine. In order to hide the fact that I am using two different woods, I am going to paint the base a very deep blue color. My wife mentioned black, but I just did not like the idea of black. I wanted blue originally, but a lighter blue color. Well, we finally chose, and it is blue but it is a very dark blue. I am happy with that. The top will be left natural and finished with water based polyurethane.

Well, now I just have to build it. I have not spent a full day in the shop now for several months. Every time I go out there I get frustrated trying to find things and end up quitting. Well, this Saturday I am doing a big purge of the garage, and it should help with my motivation. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have the wood planed and ready to use. I plan on getting the base of the unit built next week and then the following week I hope to get the top done. My parents are visiting at the end of the month and I am going to use the time I will have at home then to hopefully get the finishing done. This will put the desk ready to use when they leave. Right on schedule.

Next on the list is to get the storage bins designed and drawn. Look for more once I have made some progress.

So, we started planning. There are three main projects that I am going to get to do for setting up this office:

(1) We need a desk. The current computer desk is simply not functional for the work I am involved with. I need something larger. More on the desk either tonight or tomorrow, so far it has been an up and down project.

(2) I am going to build some storage for the kids toys. We went to IKEA yesterday and looked at their TROFAST system. Wanting their system, but not the sized they were providing, we decided to buy the plastic bins there, and then I am going to build the frames.

(3) A cabinet to put CDs, DVDs, paper, and all the trappings of the office life into. This will put things in the office as well as getting the stuff out of another cabinet that we have in the dining room. This will, of course, open up some more storage in the cabinet of the dining room.

I need to get all of these project done as quickly as possible. I am hoping that I can have it all drawn up by the end of the week. I am planning on doing all of this using home center pine. It is cheap, and I can get it good enough to make it work. Not only that, but the desk and the cabinet are going to be Shaker style and the pine will just enhance the look.

I will update as I get things done. I hope everyone enjoys.

So, here is my new concept for the back wall of the shop.

The “stud wall” behind this whole thing is actually my wood rack. The box to the far left is a five drawer filing cabinet. The work surface will be 36” off the floor.

Ok, so what does this give me?

First, the new planer cart will allow me to more efficiently use the space in the shop. When I am not using the planer, the cart can double as a surface to lay my tools on so they are not in the way.

Second, I get a new eight foot long work surface. On this surface I can permanently set up my spindle sander and my belt.disk sander where they can be used at any time. Right now I have to pull them off the shelf and use them on top of the tablesaw. Sometimes this makes it a hassle to use them. The rest of the work surface can be used for miscellaneous things.

Third, I get two new cabinet (identical) that will store under the work surface to put tools and various other shop stuff in. Like the planer cart, I am planning on getting double use out of these cabinets. They are going to have really nice formica tops on them, and I will be able to roll them out and use them as two separate assembly tables (approximately 2’ deep x 34” long), or I will be able to roll them together for a 48” x 34” assembly table or a 24” x 68” assembly table. When done with them, they will store neatly under the work surface.

I am hoping to get started this weekend on building some of this. I am going to start with the planer cart and work my way across. Within the next couple of week, I will get the other two cabinets built. It will likely be next month sometime before I get to the actual work surface, but hopefully by the end of the summer this will be done and I can start on other parts of the shop.

I will post more as I go along. Hopefully someone will find some useful ideas in all of this.

Here is on overall shot of the swing arm and the two swings. The arm itself is a 10 foot long 4×6 and the end support is made of 4×4s with a 2×4 brace between them. It is attached to the rear corner 4×4 of the tower with two 1/2” galvanized bolts.

Now, here is a close-up of the intersection of the swing arm and the support. The supports are half-lapped at the joint with two 1/2” galvanized bolts holding the joint together. The swing arm simply sits in the V. There are 7” lag screws going through each 4×4 up into the 4×6 to keep the support from being knocked out from under the swing arm. Ok, that is overkill, but it is safe.

This is a shot of one of the swings. We used rope for the swing supports, and I made the swing seats out of 2×8 material. The swings are hung from the swing bar with heavy duty hangers that came off of Ebay. They are lag bolted onto the 4×6 with 5” screws. Once again that is more than likely overkill, but it is safe.

Finally, a shot showing the happy customers!

There is one thing that is not in this picture. I want to put some bracing up between the swing arm support and the swing arm to keep the support from getting knocked out from under the arm. Even with the lag bolts, if someone hit it hard enough, it would probably come tumbling down. I will get that done before long.

Two more things to finish up the whole thing. First is another swing arm to hold a set of rings and maybe a tire swing or something similar. Finally is a roof over the top. Both of the boys love to go sit in the tower and listen to it rain. I can’t blame them, I like it too. The roof will make nicer to do that.

As always, thanks for looking and if there are any question, feel free to ask.

This shot shows the starting of the rail structure.

Here is a shot of the completed railing system with the slide not firmly attached.

Here is the best shot that I have of the ladder. It is just a couple of 2×6s at an angle with 2×6 steps between them. Since this picture I have added a couple of bars on each side at the top of the ladder so they have something to grab on to.

I do not remember if I said this or not already, and I am too lazy to go back and look. All of this was constructed of 2x material. The only treated lumber in the whole thing is the posts and the floor supports. I figure even the untreated will probably last till long after they get through playing on this.

Just a few weeks ago, I added the swing arm. I will get out tomorrow and take some pictures and hopefully get the blog post done tomorrow night. I will definitely have it done by Thursday night.

As always, thanks for looking,